88IntegraLS

Over the past year while my FC was just a project and not driven, I removed items from the car which I did not find essential. The car was a stock 87 base with no sunroof, stereo, bins, but a/c. I'm guessing it was in the 2600-2700 pound range.

Here is a list of what I have removed, their estimated weights in pounds, and a total.

Hood (steel - alum. wt.) 30
Bumper Support 25
Washer Bottle 5
AC Compressor 10
AC mount bracket 1
AC bracket studs, bolts 1
AC Evaporator 10
AC dryer 2
AC Condensor 7
Tow Brackets 10
Tow Bracket bolts 5
Exhaust hangers 1
Engine bay brackets 1
Air Pump silencer 3
Brake Ducts 1
Dash reinforcement 10
Logicon & wires 5
Tar 35
Rubber mats 10
Rear anti-sway bar, mounts 10
TB Mod parts 2
Two (front) pulleys 1


Total of weight removed: 185


I'm an airplane builder at heart, and in the field of aviation, everything is scrutinized for weight. It appears that removing many modest items from a car can add up to the weight of an average person.

5 point whoa

did you take out the spare tire and jack, it's like 40 pounds?

88IntegraLS

Spare, jack, oil, tools all will come out for autocrossing or drag racing but no, they are essential reliability items for daily driving in my opinion, as is the air pump, main cat, and a reasonably quiet exhaust.

5 point whoa

ohhh, I understand. But my spare is trash anyways, so I dont have it, or the jack, and anything else.

BDoty311

Nice stuff. Any weight difference in the wheels?

5 point whoa

I removed my spare, all the equipment back there, and all carpet/mats/foam/everything under there. and I felt a great difference

silverrotor

iTrader: (1)

Good analysis. I reached a plateau of weight reduction to noticible speed ratio for awhile. I have most of your removals and way more yet still maintain a dignified car (meaning none hacked In appearance). It wasn't until I swapped out my TII Cloth seats (35lbs/each) with my Sparco Sprints (15lbs each - although Evil Aviator suggests 17lbs), I noticed a phenominal difference In acceleration.

The tow hooks and bolts weigh 15lbs you say? I did remember a noticable pump In the pipes when I walked them to the dumpster for disposal.

88IntegraLS

The 91 Coupe wheels with Potenza RE92's are very light; I would guess lighter than the original phone dial 14's with 185/70 series tires. I don't have the phone dial wheels any more but have read that they weigh about 31 pounds with tires. I gave them to a friend when I had Gsl-Se wheels and Kumho V700 mounted. The -Se wheels / V700s felt about a pound heavier than the base model wheels. When the current wheels and tires arrived (!$67 ebay purchase, about 150 after shipping was added), I compared one of them to the -Se combination and there felt like more than a pound difference between the Coupe wheels with 205/60 Potenzas and the Se wheels with 195/60 Victoracers. In other words, I would guess the current wheels to be very light (12 pound range) and the Potenzas themselves could be light as far as tires go. Who knew that S5 NA Coupe wheels were this light? One thing is for certan. They are cheap and plentiful.

The tow plates were heavy. At least a couple if not a few pounds each x 4. The bolts were also very large and when I collected them and put them in an old margarine tub, my hand would bend the tub as I lifted it and I had to be careful that it didn't collapse completely. I estimate that to be a five pound force, conservatively.

With the current street port and weight removal, the car easily pulls harder from 3-4k rpm than it ever did at 6k+ stock. I am using the stock exhaust manifold, gutted precats, stock main cat and stock dual cat back. I had a Dynomax dual cat back before, which helped the top end noticeably.

So anyhow, I think that details really add up and that lots of little tricks are what make these few 14 second NA cars we hear about from time to time. I need to get this car to the dragstrip after the 3000 mile break-in. I'm trying to make Mazdaspeed7 do the same!

88IntegraLS

I forgot to mention that the five lug hubs were not heavier than the four lug hubs, for anyone considering a five lug swap. Holding a four lug hub in one hand and a GXL hub in the other, then switching hands, having eyes closed, etc. I could not tell which was which. Same with the rears.

The four pot calipers on the GXL hubs are much larger than the cast iron base model calipers, but not heavier. The rear calipers were both cast iron and almost identical, but the GXL calipers had heat sinks cast into them while the base model calipers were smooth. Rear brake pads turned out to be interchangeable between the two.

5 point whoa

I have the 5 lugs

gray 87 fc

hey man if you take that exhaust off and and put an aftermarket single tip on it will be a noticible difference along with a header and presilincer,imo ne ways

5 point whoa

that does sound like a pretty good idea. the new engine install that i"m doing should be a pretty good weight reduction also. (it's in my sig) it's ported alot, and prolly a little lighter

mazdaspeed7

Why did you remove the rear sway bar?

BDoty311

3000 mile rpm breakin? Damn. May I ask why?

Stock exhaust manifold and cats weigh alot aswell, so you could see a handful of pounds there aswell. But you aparently would like to keep it.

88IntegraLS

I removed the rear sway bar to experiment with tuning the FC suspension and to see how much it would increase understeer. I found it to noticeably increase the understeer and I am considering reinstalling it, although the car is not understeering like my Acura did, and only loses traction in back when braking hard during a tight turn or flooring first taking a sharp turn. My car has good working Tokico HP (blue) shocks with Eibach springs. I like the struts because they are firm, and the springs lowered the car about an inch, but dual rate springs are not quite my flavor and I would rather swap them out for Racing Beat springs.

I do plan to install my Racing Beat collected header with a CCinsert welded into an extension pipe, which will be necessary to fill the 5" gap between this header and my stock main cat.

I love the sound of a rotary winding up, but not everyone likes the sound of a race car (bystanders, cops) so I'm trying to keep a low profile with the car, which is already a little hard with the bright yellow paint .

88IntegraLS

Oh, I dunno, conventional practice I guess. I'll confess; I've had it up in the mid 5k range a few times and if f$%king takes off after 4300 rpm. To not have a header on this engine is a rotary sin.

mazdaspeed7

Mines on the progressive plan... 800 miles, and 6K rpm now... Btw, hows your motor doing? Mine is doing GREAT. Its already stronger than my last motor. My friends S2000 will in trouble soon...

88IntegraLS

The engine has been trouble free. It almost seems too good to be true sometimes. :crossfingers:

I was worried about losing low end torque because of porting, but after tweaking a few things, the engine seems to have much more low end and especially midrange torque than before. It actually seems more drivable now. You were saying the same thing about your SP engine . . strange . . . I thought porting was supposed to reduce the low end and midrange. It must have been that tip you gave me about the special curve to put on the ports.

S2000 . . . yeah that would be great to be able to walk an S2000, all motor on 1.3 litres, ha.

bottlejockey

what do you mean Tar?

BlackRx7

sound deadening tar,

btw how did you choose to remove the tar? I recently purchased like 20 bucks worth of dry ice and removed most of the tar, the only tar I couldn't get off is under the dash and anything that is on an incline cause the dry ice wouldn't sit on it.

but I have noticed a differce with removing the tar, the rear end feels a whole lote lighter, and makes lauching very tricky for drag racing, but my clutch was bad at the time so that may explain part of it, **** i still ran a 13.5 at 103 :p

oh yeah my car weight 2515 with out me in it

88IntegraLS

Eight hours with a chisel and rubber mallet. I did the tar when I had no job, no money and a lot of time on my hands. Now I have NO time! (college and part time job)

RotaryWeaponSE7EN

iTrader: (6)

Damn 8 hours?
Chisel and rubber mallet?

I use a heat gun and paint scraper, took me 90 minutes.

ERAUMAZDA

bump...more weight reduction stories

RETed

I've recently resurrected my weights page here...
http://fc3spro.com/TECH/weights.htm


-Ted